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Show 1 A REPUBLICAN ON SPARKS. ' No man in the employment of the I - Government has been more abused than I Land-Commissioner Sparks. This abuse I has been heaped upon him merely be- I cause he has attempted to carry out the I law, and because some laws hare been 1 harsh in their working the Commissioner ' is blamed for it. He is not responsible for the laws which control his department, I but he is responsible for their enforce ment. The Republican Tribune of this city has delighted right along in abusing him most shamefully, and abusing him for the same reason that the people of Utah abuse the courts here because they enforce laws that are obnoxious to the peon of Utah. The Chicazo Tribune of th nit. contained the following comu. -icaioa from the Honorable E. B. Washurnc,.and we gladly give it a place in our columns, that the people of Utah may sea in what estimation Mr. Sparks ish-. iLn the East: E 'a. r of the Tribune: I see that the Hon. Will. am A. J. Sparks, Commissioner of the Land Ofiloe at. Washington, is the subject of many violent attacks by certain news- f papers, us well as by the stipendiaries of the and -g rait railroads. I have no personal acquaintance with Mr. Sparks, and have never seen ui.n, and we are as far apart politiaallv ae it is possible for any two men to be. But I cesire to say that in all that I have read in r. net to his administration of the Gom n H Hid Office 1 see nothing whioh j j3tiiioilO' "' lacks which have been made ur n solar as I can judge. In respoot to ma decisions they are substantially sub-stantially just ai d in aooordanoe with law. If persons affected l y such decisions are dissatisfied, it would be far better for them to exercise their riUt of appeal to have such decisions reviewed than to. be assailing the Commissioner through the newspapers. They can be heard, if llit-y are dissatisfied, before the Secretary of the Interior, Mr. Lamar, whom I hnvp known, since some years previous to the breaking out of the war, as a member of Congress from Mississippi Missis-sippi and a member cf the Committee of Commerce of the Honse cf ttepresentatives of which I was the CuAlrman: and I can state that he is not only a very able man, but a very just and conscientious man, who can be trusted in any matter of appeal that may come before him. And then, on law questions, ques-tions, the opinion of the Attorney-General could be had, who is an able lawyer, and, I (believe, an honest man. The General Land Office, for the last fifteen fif-teen or twenty years, has, according to my judgment, been the most corrupt department that ever existed in any. government on the f aoe of the earth. For years and years the land jobbers and the land grabbers seemed to have had full sway there, and it is quite time they were rooted out. And I am glad to find that an Illinois man like Mr. Sparks has had the courage to attack these stupendous stu-pendous abuses and to attempt toreoover for the benefit of the people at large some portion of the public lands which had been obtained from the Government by the railroad rail-road companies. I hope that his hands may be strengthened and that he will continue in the course that he has laid out for himself. him-self. Some say that a pressure has been made upon the President and upon the Secretary of the Interior, Mr. Lamar, and that it will be necessary for him to be removed. re-moved. It is impossible to believe that such can be the case; that an honest, faithful, and incorruptible public officer should be hounded out of his place by the men whose action he has exposed, and who is making such laudable efforts, as I think he is, to get back for the Government hundreds of millions mil-lions of acres of public lands which have been literally filched from it by the land-grant land-grant railroads. In respect to these railroad grants Mr. Sparks seems to be traveling in the same direction di-rection with Judge Payson, the able Republican Repub-lican Representative from this State, who is making a reputation before the country for the energetic action he has taken in the House of Representatives to get back for the benefit of the settlers and for the public generally, a portion of the lands whioh the railroads have grabbed through the con- nivanoe and corruption of the General Land Office. Mr. Sparks deserves to be commended com-mended for his actions rather than denounced, de-nounced, and for one I wish to bear toward him as well as toward Judge PayBon, my sincere thanks for the course whioh they have taken. KB. Washbubke. . Chicago, January 27. |